International Inquiry Under Way In Mass. Murders

CLEVELAND - — The search for Dr. Laxma Reddy, whose wife, 13-year-old daughter and father-in-law were found murdered on Monday in Brookline, Mass., has turned international.

Investigators have scanned international passenger manifests and combed two cities for Reddy, whose family was shot to death execution-style in their beds at their apartment - a home Reddy left more than two years ago.

Investigators said Reddy, a physician with an erratic career path, has not been named as a suspect. But extensive efforts to locate him have been fruitless.

"He is obviously not anywhere accessible at this point," Cleveland police Sgt. Mark Hastings said. "Until he is found, [investigators) won't know what happened. There is the possibility he is a victim."

But a source familiar with the investigation said detectives were checking the theory that the long, slow slide of Reddy's medical career may have left him mentally unbalanced.

In Boston, state police searched parking lots at Logan International Airport and asked airlines for lists of passengers on overseas flights to check for the Indian-born doctor, sources said. They also checked planes headed to Cleveland and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York - a hub for international flights.

Meanwhile, detectives from Massachusetts, accompanied by Cleveland officers, canvassed the neighborhood where Reddy, 42, lived in an apartment. One neighbor said he was last seen there about two weeks ago.

Investigators also checked Columbia St. Luke's Medical Center, a Cleveland teaching hospital. Reddy was in a three-year internal medicine residency there, but abruptly left in November 1995, about halfway through his term.

The hospital would not say why he left. "You can say he left on his own volition," spokeswoman Gina Goodwin said.

Reddy's name is still on the mailbox of his apartment building on Shaker Boulevard. Neighbors were surprised to learn that he parted ways with Columbia St. Luke's more than 16 months ago.

"He had on his [surgical) scrubs just two weeks ago. I can't understand it," said Walter Cox, a retired bailiff who sometimes carried Reddy's medical journals, magazines and copies of The India Times to his neighbor's door on the third floor.

Cox described Reddy as a quiet but friendly neighbor.

"He wasn't here much," he said. "I told my wife I thought I was the only one in the building he talked to."

The search is the latest development in the murders of Uma Reddy, her teen-age daughter Kirthi, and her father, Jaganath Reddy, 58. The bodies were found in two rooms of the first-floor apartment.

The deaths shocked residents of the upscale, nine-story apartment building, home to graduate students and medical professionals from around the world.

Police have given few details of the crime, but have tried to calm the fears of neighbors. The murders, officials said, were not random. "These three were targeted in their execution," District Attorney Jeffrey Locke said.